


Strong Men Simply Shatter

by badcostume



Category: Ghost BC
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Break Up, Resurrection, satanic abbey meets workplace comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29654886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badcostume/pseuds/badcostume
Summary: You can't hang up on your boss when he calls after hours if your boss is, in fact, Satan.
Relationships: (past), Cardinal Copia/Papa Emeritus III
Comments: 17
Kudos: 28





	Strong Men Simply Shatter

**Author's Note:**

> The ghouls depicted in this work of fiction are the result of 0 research and a passing familiarity with their fandom-ascribed names. It's my party and my satanic church so popes revert to the title of father when they retire or are killed.

Copia was dreaming. He was in a swanky, but outdated, locker room. There was the sound of showering and some amicable towel-snapping just out of sight--the edges of the room blurred faintly, like a poorly cropped photo. 

“Hello, Gianni,” he heard. A curly redhead in black tip-toed out of the shadows and struck a pose. “How do I look?”

“Like a star, your Dark Eminence,” Copia said. “Gwen Verdon herself would be proud.”

“Man, I love _Damn Yankees_ ,” Lucifer said. She hunched her shoulders and bunny-hopped backwards. “I’m glad you had this reference locked and loaded. Maybe we’ll do _Steam Heat_ next time.” 

“Wasn’t Tab Hunter in uniform in this scene?” Copia asked. He inspected the small towel on his lap. “Is this a washcloth?”

“It covers the essentials,” Lucifer said, Fosse-ing her hands towards his privates. “I thought that was the main issue with humans?”

“I suppose you have a point.”

Lucifer nodded and step-ball-changed across the floor, executing a neat turn and extending her toe towards him. 

“I adore this,” she said. “Your bodies are so nice to look at and be in. I have to say, I’m partial to this kind. Though I do love flapping a dick about from time to time.” 

“Don’t we all,” Copia said, and tried to casually cross his legs. “Was there something you wanted, your Eminence?” 

“Right,” she said. She continued with the number as she spoke, swinging her hips and articulating her ankles. “So, I have a task for you. A reincarnation. Top priority and heavy on the dark magic.”

“Certainly,” Copia said, more confidently than he felt. “Who?”

She turned, arms wrapped around her torso, and it was Papa Emeritus the Third’s face speaking to him. 

“This asshole,” she said in his voice. “I have work for him on Earth. I need you to pull him back on St Valen’s day.”

“That’s a rather tight schedule, your Eminence,” Copia said. “Even without taking into account the orgy we have planned in your name.”

Terzo-Lucifer did a high-kick and spin. 

“Yeah, I know. But you’re top dog in the clergy now, so,” she said, taking tiny, bouncy strides toward him, “Heavy hangs the crown and all that. I recommend you get to it, Gianni.”

"Next time I want to be Gwen Verdon," Copia grumbled. Lucifer laughed, an unpleasant, goaty noise. 

She bent down and kissed his forehead.

“Go ahead and wake up now.”

Copia opened his eyes and was greeted with the canopy in his new quarters, not yet familiar. He looked at the bedside clock. Four AM.

“Fuck,” he said, and heaved himself upright. 

At least he didn’t have to do any digging. The papas were entombed beneath the abbey, in a cavernous grotto with a milky pool at its center. The ceiling was crystal, black and glittering. Most of the light came from the pool, which meant a lot of squinting at the minuscule text of a grimoire, so Copia hauled down his desk lamp. He sent one of the newest additions to his personal staff--he had personal staff, now, thanks to the major vacancy, it was so weird--Cumulus, to get extension cords and a card table from the supply closet. She seemed shocked to have actually been summoned, but rallied admirably, notepad out and crowded with her neat shorthand. 

“And some coffee, please,” he said. 

“Dew really wants to get the new starbucks seasonal thing,” she said. “Can we take the car?” 

“Fine, get me a muffin,” he said. An enthusiastic _yes!_ echoed down the stairs. 

“Wait, is Dew the fire spirit? Do not let him drive,” he called after her. “Hey, did you hear me? Do not let him behind the wheel!”

Bringing someone back wasn’t _hard_ , exactly. If you were doing everything from scratch, the most difficult part was getting the attention of the spirit and negotiating with Hell, which took an average mortal years--if they could even get a hit on their random dial to the underworld in the first place. The clergy had a significant leg up with their connection to Lucifer, so the real work was choreographing the actual raising, the details of which Copia was a little fuzzy on, if he was being honest. 

Copia had never performed this particular ritual; in fact, if you began counting from Nihil, the Emeratii had barely a handful of full-blown real-deal resurrections to their name. Hell was pretty nice for those who had made the deal, and doubly so for dark popes. That being said, Segundo had returned once to go to Prince’s funeral. But it was rare enough that the chamber had accumulated some detritus from years of disuse, most noticeably an animal presence that had to be cleared out before they could begin. 

“So when he comes back,” the ghoul Copia recognized as Dew said, “Is he our boss again?”

“I will remain your boss,” Copia said. “I think Father Emeritus III will be, uh, a kind of freelancer for the clergy.” 

“Cool,” Dew said. “Wait, does that mean you have to give your bedroom back? Or will he sleep in your old room? Or will you sleep in the same room? Oh! Or will he sleep down here, like a vampire--” 

“Drain is all clear,” Cumulus shouted from the edge of the pool. “We got the rest of that squirrel out.” 

The big ghoul next to her, Aether, swallowed something and flashed a thumbs up at him. 

“What if we attach his head on backwards,” Dew said, and eased a talon under the marble lid of the tomb as if to lift it and peek in.

“We are not going to attach his head backwards,” Copia said, holding the lid firm. 

“Ah, shit, scratch that. It looks like it had babies,” Cumulus said, bending over the pipe. “Boss, you would not believe how tiny these skeletons are.” 

  
  


There were ways to get through. Messages, via crows or crones, or dream visitation, or even poltergeist shit with the nearest available electronics. Texts, even. He knew from the lightening speed of gossip that passed through the abbey that the ghouls used their phones to bitch to their cousins in Hell in a group chat. During cleaning, Cirrus bragged that she had an unbroken snap streak with Panaimon. All of this to say that death was not the end for people like them; that in fact, there was an open party line. 

But Terzo had not tried to contact Copia at all. Sometimes he’d dreamed of him, but it was the kind of dream where Terzo was always at the end of the hall and wouldn’t turn around when he called, or he appeared as part of a longform drama involving various other people he’d foolishly fallen in love with, a caricature of regret.

  
  


“So is it weird, seeing the guy you replaced after he was, you know,” Dew made a violent stabbing motion with his free hand. 

A quick, unpleasant confab with Imperator had relieved Copia of his previous duties organizing and hosting the orgy so he could focus on the latest request from the Dark Lord. This meant, however, he had to make do with about four ghouls and the odd Sibling instead of the force he’d usually have at his disposal. He'd ended up with the motley crew assembled around him, scrubbing Terzo’s naked body with goat milk and lavender. Cirrus kept checking her phone and laughing. Aether had just recovered from some weird illness that made half his body intangible. Dew was, well, himself. It was not, Copia found himself thinking, a dream team. 

“He wasn't stabbed,” Cirrus said, "He was decapitated."

"He--"

“Yeah, I know that part,” Dew said, raising the head and shaking it, “Duhhhh.” 

“Watch it,” Aether said, “You're getting this death milk everywhere.” 

"Please--"

“And we told you not to say anything,” Cumulus hissed, elbowing him. Dew tried to block her assault with the head. 

“Release the head of Father Emeritus the Third,” Copia said, voice rising, “And focus on cleansing his unholy body so that we can get the fuck out of here.” 

There was blessed silence, save for the solemn plop of the head returning to its place in the tomb.

This did not last long. 

"How _are_ we going to reattach it?" Cumulus asked. Copia was unsurprised to hear that the ghouls all had opinions on this.   
  


The resurrection technically began when they drained the tomb and began cleansing the body. That meant the next 48 hours would be a whirlwind of chants, dances, and conjurings that Copia had attempted to chart out on a whiteboard Aether had dragged down to the grotto. After a dinner break, which for Copia meant shoving whatever he found in the kitchen in his mouth and taking a generous pull from the whiskey bottle in his office, they reconvened in the grotto. He attempted to run through the steps, which became fuzzier and fuzzier as the ritual progressed. 

“At one am we will take the body to the pool in the center of the room, where it will hopefully sink completely. One ghoul representing each element will need to rotate around the pool clockwise, at a different speed depending on the position of the moon--which, Dew, please see what house we’re in and then check the general reference for the translation to steps per second, thank you. Now, please. The reference is over there. No, the one bound in human skin. Yes. I will need to chant the back half of this devotional, blah blah blah we give thanks to Lucifer and name all the Kings of Hell...I think they all need an offering as well, so Cirrus, please take a Sibling and get the usual. Lists should be hanging in the closet by the main chapel. Ok, then we have a six hour vigil, and then another six hours of...either pacing or dancing. I think both. Then we draw blood...”

At the last two hours of the ritual, progress ground to a halt. The whiteboard had a depressing number of “?” around each point. Dew’s quick trip to the library for reference material had spiraled and now it was dark outside and they still couldn’t pin down at least three major movements. 

“Ok, I will drive a knife into the body…” Copia trailed off. “Is it into the heart, or can I drive the knife anywhere?”

“Hmm,” Cumulus peered closer at the book in her lap, which was in an Enochian derivative that made Copia’s brain throb when he looked at it too closely. “Mine just says ‘the master injures the meat, the meat rises hence.’”

  
“This says ‘pierce the breast, two heartbeats, one, pierce the veil,” Aether said. He’d borrowed Copia’s reading glasses. 

“But when does the body resurface?” Cumulus asked. “Before the fire is extinguished, or after?”

Copia scrubbed his eyes and stared at the whiteboard. He’d learned the final, major incantations like all other higher clergy members: direct tutoring from a pit demon in limbo. In theory, this was an unbroken chain of knowledge that protected and enlivened their most dangerous, esoteric practices; in reality, it meant that a gelatinous blob named Reg’l’thyt had given him a telepathic lecture for three human years that had quickly derailed into a tangent about xiz time ripping people in half during the Crusades. 

“I’d say go for the heart,” Aether said. “It’s symbolic, and that usually wins you points in this kind of thing.” 

“Ok,” Copia said, and wrote HEART on the whiteboard. “And based on our notes, I think it’s before the fire is extinguished.”

“So fire is lit, blah blah, body rises, fire goes out, knife goes in?” Cumulus asked. 

“Yes, it appears so,” Copia said. “And then it is removed, and we have the final gesture from me, which should...finish him off. So to speak.”

“My instruction ends at the stabbing,” Cumulus said. "No mention of removal." 

“Is that a tome for the Barbarian Sorcerers?” Copia asked. Cumulus nodded. He squinted in recollection. “They refused to prostrate themselves before the dead. The knife stays in as part of their weapon offering tradition--they gave everyone blades.”

“Doooope,” Dew said, sitting up from where he had been lying on the floor. “Can you imagine how mad kitty would be if you left a knife in him?”

“Kitty?” Copia frowned.

There was a silence he recognized from teaching children, the kind of quiet that came after a whole group of someones had dumped a jar of paste on his chair. The ghouls looked at each other uneasily. 

“What?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing,” Cumulus said quickly.

“Oh come on,” Copia said, surprised at his own curiosity. “What is it?” 

“It’s not really--”

“You know how feline males are huge sluts,” Dew began, and Cumulus threw the book at him. 

Copia let out a crazy, high laugh. 

“You called the dark pope _kitty_ behind his back?!” 

“It’s the closest translation to what we mean,” Aether admitted, eyes fixed on his book. 

“It’s not--we don’t always,” Cumulus said. “We’d never say it in, you know, a mortal tongue.”

“Oh yeah, never,” Dew said. Cumulus gave him a dirty look. Dew shrugged and then did a double-take.

“Wait, why do you look like that,” he asked Copia.

“Terzo spoke pit tongue,” Copia said. “It’s one of the gifts Satan bestows upon you when you enter the higher clergy.” 

There was another long moment of silence. 

“So does that mean that you,” Dew began--

“I’m back, bearing gifts,” Cirrus interrupted, descending the stairs with her arms full. Over one shoulder was a small cooler. “You would not believe the hassle it took to find virgin’s tears. Nobody lets their kids run around unsupervised anymore. I had to wait outside a school like a creep until one of the slower kids came up to the fence.”

She dumped the bags on the floor and only then seemed to notice the mood in the room. She looked between the ghouls and Copia. 

“What happened?” she asked the ghouls. “Baby rat here looks more pink than usual.” 

“ _Baby rat?_ ” Copia said, pained. Cirrus froze.

“Did you know the clergy can understand pit tongue?” Dew asked her, helpfully. 

Copia did not storm off, exactly, but he did excuse himself to get another reference book. Instead of heading to the library, though, he walked through the main hall and out into the side kitchen garden, where he stood under one of Primo’s lemon trees and screamed into his fist. 

He was ambitious. That was valued. He was generous. That was also valued. He was patient, devoted, precise, and yet here he was hosting a dog-and-pony show of a ritual for one of the most esteemed members of the church with the cast of The Replacements. 

“Satan, give me strength,” he said. He waited a moment, in case this was sufficient to summon his unholiness for a pep talk. 

It was not. There was nothing to be done, really, so he settled on stomping some of the rotten lemons, which made a satisfying squelchy pop under his feet, and punted one into the dark for good measure. It would have to do. He took a deep breath, straightened his robes, and then went back inside. 

Kitty, though, he thought, watching the ghouls bicker over who would represent what element. It was close enough to an endearment, on the razor edge of insult, something Terzo had loved. Terzo had a pet name for everyone, anyway. He didn't keep grudges, he kissed everyone hello, he had once called Copia's office just to ask him to pronounce the name of a cheese from his province. It had all been so that he could hear Copia's accent. 

"You are so charming, farm boy," he'd said, and Copia had blushed down to his chest. 

"You're one to talk, you hick," he'd replied, in thick dialect. Terzo had laughed so hard he'd dropped his phone. 

"Yo! Let's get this reanimation on the road," Dew yelled, and Copia came back to earth and the slightly sulfurous grotto with a thud. 

"I put a snack in your robe pocket," Cirrus whispered as they took their places. Copia startled. 

"Cumulus says that like, humans need energy," she said, avoiding his eyes. 

"Thank you," he said. 

"No probs," she said, and slipped her phone into her pocket. 

At least baby rats were cute, he found himself thinking. In their own way. 

Copia cleared his throat and raised his arms. The ghouls seemed to shimmer, and then elongate. Their outlines became smoky, incomplete; tails and horns appeared. Their eyes receded into deep, cavernous holes. Copia cut open his palm and dripped blood into the surface of the pool. He took a deep breath and was full of the ecstatic, electric power that was just a sliver of what would be avaiable to him in the future. It was enough to make him sigh, and say, in a clear, ringing voice,

"Let's begin."

  
  
  


By noon the next day they had made it through the first round of pacing, chanting, and tempering of the water. Copia raised his hands and spoke the words of cessation, which boomed through the grotto. A spare moment later, fire sprang up, blue and flickering, around the edge of the pool. The pool itself had darkened from milky white to a flat, unmoving black. 

It took a moment for Copia to come back to himself, the pool and the fire easing from a glowing blur to their actual shapes. He inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, and shifted his weight from leg to leg, shaking out each ankle. He began mentally scrolling through the next steps, and his hand bumped into what felt like a granola bar in his pocket. 

Across from him, Aether caught his eye and gave him a hesitant nod. 

Copia nodded back, and found himself smiling. The first part had gone unexpectedly well. The ghouls had paced and turned and bowed, weaving in between each other, with an uncanny, elegant timing. The steady rhythm of their feet had been the heartbeat against which he had set his own chanting, and at one point he’d found himself so lost within it that the hair on his arms and neck had stood up. The ghouls were now back to their unassuming, if eerie, humanoid form; but it had been moving, to see them like that. 

He cleared his throat.

“Good work, everyone,” he said. “You all did great.”

“Thanks,” Dew said, shifting as much as he could with his feet stuck in one space. “Can I sit down now?”

“You may not,” Cumulus said, from Copia’s right. “Stop making me be such a killjoy, dude, we’ve been over this. We have a six-hour vigil to get through.” 

“Thanks for the compliment, Cardinal,” Cirrus said as she passed behind him. She would remain circling, occasionally bowing and throwing offerings into the pool, until the next section began. “Not too shabby yourself.” 

“Thank you,” Copia said, smiling still. 

The fire was soundless, but every once in a while an arc of black flame would shoot from the ceiling into the center of the pool, making Copia’s ears ring with unheard noise. The water remained absolutely still, each offering that landed on its surface holding for a second before being smoothly absorbed. It was calm, almost meditative. 

“So if we can’t sit, can we at least talk?” Dew asked. “We have another five hours and fifty five minutes to kill.” 

Their mouths were covered, but Copia was pretty sure Aether was telling Dew to shut up with his eyes.

Copia opened his mouth, and then swallowed the comment he was about to make. He thought for a moment.

“Actually, there’s nothing that says we can’t talk,” he said. “As long as we don’t step out of the ritual circle.” 

“Cool,” Dew said. “So when are you gonna ascend?”

“Well,” Copia said, having expected this but feeling completely blindsided anyway, “When the dark lord wills it.”

“Smooth,” Cumulus said. 

“Have you chosen your ghouls for the tour?” Aether asked. “There’s no way they send Nihil out this summer. It’s gotta be you. Have you thought about the set list?”

“I had not yet considered that,” Copia lied. He was regretting letting them talk. 

“Bullshit,” Dew said, pointing at him. “Bull-shit!”

“You know I’m still your boss, right,” Copia said, but was steamrolled by Dew, who continued:

“There’s only one thing that every senior clergy member has in common: ambition. Stone cold. It’s like, coded in your DNA. If I were you, I’d already be planning my papal colors.” 

“That is also beyond my control,” Copia said. “I will accept whatever Satan chooses.” 

“Did you already get media training?” Cumulus asked, sounding legitimately impressed. “I’ve been meaning to suggest we have all the touring ghouls take a Coursera or something.” 

“I hate looking at a screen for more than thirty minutes at a time,” Aether said. 

“Man, you need to adjust to the visible spectrum up here,” Dew said. “How are you supposed to see the hotties in the audience if you’re still fucked up on infrared?” 

“Can I ask a question?” Cirrus asked, actually raising her hand.

“I doubt I could stop you,” Copia said.

"And that means..?"

“Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” Cirrus said, followed by, “You got a sex friend?” 

All the ghouls looked at him expectantly. 

“Are you...offering?” he asked, stalling. 

“We have to stand here for the next six hours,” Dew said. “Keep it in your pants, papa.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Copia said, a little sharply. The ghouls stiffened. He relented, “Yet.” 

“Excuse me, you can’t answer a question with, like, another question,” Cirrus said. 

“Agreed,” Cumulus said. 

“This feels very one-sided,” Copia said. 

“Get used to it,” Cirrus said, ominously, as she passed behind him. 

“You are the most impertinent group of ghouls,” he said. He willed down his embarrassment. “Uh, no, I do not have a, lover, at the moment.”

“Awwwww,” Dew trilled. 

“Sorry you had to skip the orgy, boss,” Cumulus said.

“Is it because you’re still into kitty?” Aether asked. 

Copia felt the blood drain from his face. 

“What?”

“Sorry, is it because you’re still into, uh, Father Emeritus the Third?” Aether corrected. 

Copia knew, rationally, that he wasn’t going to faint; that he was deep within the ritual and his body was no longer completely his own. However, the possibility had never seemed as close as it did at that moment. 

“What do you mean?” he managed, in a normal voice. 

The ghouls seemed confused. They exchanged what Copia finally realized were telepathic glances--how had he forgotten that if they wanted to be covert, they could, that they were actual cursed beings in a corporeal form, that most things about humanity were alien and insignificant to them, even if they mimicked human form. 

Alright, he told himself, calm down. Not everyone is plotting your downfall, secretly, pretending to love you--

I said calm down! he yelled at himself, gripping the edges of the ceremonial robe. 

Cumulus cleared her throat. 

“Perhaps we misunderstood,” Cumulus began, the cautious tone of which alone was enough to make Copia frantically wish he would actually faint and escape this conversation, “But we thought you and the third had a romantic relationship.” 

He wished that this reckoning had come about thanks to literally any other topic, but he had the growing suspicion that Lucifer had requested he perform this rite just to force an after-school special with him and the ghouls about, of all things, his feelings. 

“Romantic relationship,” Copia repeated, horrified. 

“We thought you were fucking,” Dew clarified. “On the DL.”

“Yeah, that was more my read on it,” Aether said. 

“I see,” Copia said. 

There was another pause and a bolt of black lightning filled his head with absent noise, a pleasant distraction. Copia stared at the black pool where his ex would be surfacing in another twelve hours. 

“You seem surprised,” Cumulus said, leading. 

“I am,” Copia said. He did not elaborate. 

“Are you ok?” Cirrus asked. 

“I’m fine,” Copia said. 

“You look terrible,” Dew said. 

“Actually, I think we should be quiet for a few hours,” Cumulus said. 

For whatever reason, Dew had nothing to say to this. Another tongue of flame descended from the ceiling. 

  
  


“When,” Copia asked, about two hours later. The ghouls startled to attention out of whatever mental argument they’d been in. At one point Cirrus had given Dew the finger. 

“When what?” Dew asked, immediately. 

“When did you all know about it?”

“Uh, March?” Cumulus said, glancing around for confirmation. Everyone nodded. “Yeah, March of last year.”

“I see,” Copia said. 

“Cardinal, there’s no reason to be embarrassed,” Cirrus said. “It's like, we all figured the Third was gunning for your dick after that moon viewing party? Where he recited that poem about birds?”

“Like any of us cared,” Dew said, “The man made moves on anything that breathed.”

Copia laughed, almost a bark. 

"That he did," he said. 

The ghouls gave each other the silent conference call look again. 

“But it seems,” Cumulus chose her words carefully, “Like you two had something serious. Is that correct?”

Copia remained silent.

“Oh, man,” Dew said. 

“That's sweet, Cardinal,” Aether said, sounding sincere. 

“You are bonkers in Yonkers for that dude!” Dew crowed.

“It must be _so_ emotional,” Cirrus said. “Reunited with your dead bang bro.” 

“I figured that was why you were so weird all this time,” Dew continued. “I mean, you let us read the sacred texts, which, I didn’t think it was worth reminding you at the time, but ghouls aren’t really allowed to do that. Next thing you know, you'd let me drive.” 

“What? No, I think that rule is bigoted,” Copia said, still reeling from Cirrus’s use of ‘bang bro’ and overwhelmed by this runaway train of a conversation, “I couldn’t have done this without your help.”

“Wow,” Dew said. “I thought you were just so dickmatized you hadn’t realized what you were doing.”

"Dickmatized?" Cumulus asked. 

“So you two gonna kiss? Or something?” Cirrus asked, a little too eagerly. “When his body materializes?” 

"There's actually a decent chance they'll just bone in front of us," Dew said. "Humans."

“There will be no kissing,” Copia said. 

"You're going to copulate in front of us?" Aether asked. "No offense, but gross." 

"What? No," Copia said. 

"They'll copulate later, I think he's shy," Cirrus said. 

"There will be no copulating," Copia said, and found that he was close to shouting. He took a breath. "We--it ended. Before he died."

There was another, dreadful silence. Copia wondered if this would become the defining feature of his tenure at the abbey: protracted humiliation in a workplace setting. 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Dew blurted, with all the ill-timed perception that Copia had expected, “He _dumped_ you?” 

It had been a seduction over a matter of months that culminated with Terzo appearing at his door, paintless, with a bottle of wine and and delighted smile on his face when Copia had wiped off his own eye paint, eye by eye, before letting him in. It would have happened sooner--Copia was no stranger to indulgence, and enjoyed more than anything flirting with cocktail waitresses, receptionists, shoeshiners, even better if it ended with some rambunctious fun in the nearest cloakroom--but he’d enjoyed the chase. It was intoxicating to be the apple of Papa’s eye, be the one sung to. He’d enjoyed making a dramatic, chaste exit in his cassock when summoned, the Oh No I Couldn’t writ large and teasingly on his face. And Terzo kept at it, every interaction stoking what Copia had immediately sussed was an insatiable blaze. 

He’d soaked Terzo’s face and then hoisted his leg up over his shoulder to fuck the smirk off him and had mostly succeeded when Terzo began talking. This wasn’t new, he was a mouthy shit even when his mouth was ostensibly occupied, but what he was saying was with the cadence reserved for holding a knife over an open palm. It was insistent and serious and breathless: I want you mind, body, and soul. I want you, Gianni; rule beside me. Let me please you for the rest of eternity. 

Thinking about it, fully dressed and of sober mind, made Copia want to kill himself; this wasn’t even counting the stuff he’d said after he’d come and was kissing Terzo’s back, stroking his hair. Of course he’d said yes. Of course he’d said thank you, yes, please, take it, you’re beautiful, choose me. Please choose me. He would have done, and did, anything, to make that happen. 

Part of it was the papal aura, which made every partner half thrall before they had a chance to shake off their orgasm and consider their priorities. But most of it was honest affection, and that was what had hurt the most. He wasn’t mad, exactly; he was over it. The one thing he hated was having the rug pulled out from under him, the feeling of being made a fool of, and of being stupid enough to have convinced himself that Terzo would be content to be co-anything, much less co-leader of the most powerful, intoxicating, full-throttle thrill ride of all known universes. He couldn’t say for certain he wouldn’t have done the same thing. 

The ghouls were looking at him expectantly. Lucifer give him strength.

“I,” he said, intending to give a breezy, Imperator-approved summation, detached and worthy of the next pope. But what came out of his mouth was: “He's a busy man. And so am I. We're busy. And when you're busy you're both, you know, not on the same, you don't--I misunderstood--not that he, it was, I thought, I mean, we had--It wasn't going to be, you know, like that, and so. It was that. What it was. "

He watched as Cumulus raised her hands to cover her eyes, thought better of it, and pretended to be shifting her sculpted hair behind her ear. 

"Humans have different needs, and ours didn't match. When you love--when you care, and it's a lot like love, but maybe isn't love, and it changes, you know. And so you know, it doesn't make sense to keep going. I mean, ha, what a mess the paperwork would be. Papa and Papa dating, ha! Ha. A mess."

"So yes, I was dumped," he concluded, moronically. "That is essentially what happened." 

Silent lightning filled the room. 

"Yikes," Dew said

If prompted, he could very easily rattle off a potential tour schedule, complete with tag line and ritual ornamentation design. He wanted his robes to be scarlet. A rich red, a hungry, powerful red. If some of the excitement he used to feel, thinking about his future and his position, was faded, well, that was just familiarity. Gild off the lily after watching Nihil calmly turn away from his own son's body, maybe. Emotions were not a weakness, he knew; indulgence was necessary to acclimate to the amount of power, the trans-dimensional living that dark popes were privy to. They were meant to embrace wrath, lust, gluttony, etc. So what he should have done, really, was to fully embrace his heartbreak and flood the halls of the abbey with blood, get day drunk and summon a dragon, slash the tires on Terzo's Rolls. Then it would have been purged from his system. If he had done something differently after Terzo had said, "You know this can't last," then maybe he wouldn't feel as horrible and sad as he did right now, waiting for the other man to resurface.

If he was very honest with himself, the secrecy had been thrilling but practical: it was meant to minimize this sort of fallout. And yet everyone still knew. So even that fettering, that cleverness, had been for nothing, and now he was experiencing, in miniature, the very public emotional flaying he had sought to avoid. 

I should have definitely keyed his car, Copia thought morosely. 

Copia loved to dance, and usually felt the closest to Lucifer and the most powerful, the most alive, during the dancing part of rituals. So it was a real shame that this felt more like the Bataan death march than the joy-filled frolic it was supposed to be. It was guided by whatever music was conjured from the energy of the deceased. It was solo for the most part, but they had to take partners at certain beats and thus double the energy of the dance. Usually this meant a sensual moment of connection, a whirl and brief breath of another, but Copia felt about as sexy as the dead squirrel they'd fished out of the drainage pipe. 

So it was a huge surprise to him when Cumulus dragged a finger down his chest and kissed him. 

What the-, he thought, and then they broke apart. The next round, he was chest to chest with Dew, who cocked his head, spun Copia around, and kissed him as well. Hard and warm and weirdly dry, but a kiss nonetheless, with a little grope at his ass for good measure. 

When Aether gamely leant in, eyes flicking to his lips, Copia finally snapped. 

"What the fuck are you guys doing," he said. They faltered; Cirrus looked curiously over Cumulus's head and Dew stopped mid-spin.

"Keep dancing!" he said. "I don't want to have to re-do this, keep dancing!"

They continued in time, but kept a wary eye on him. Aether did the Charleston at arm's length. 

"I don't want your disrespect," Copia said, matching Aether step for step, "I don't want your dishonesty."

"But most of all," he said, executing a murderous twirl, "I don't want your pity. So save it."

The ghouls seemed to flicker, and the atmosphere, which had been at about the level of an office Christmas party, dipped to that of a disciplinary hearing. 

Copia tried channel his feelings into furiously grooving through the next chunk of time, hoping that this would transmute somehow into the effort necessary to raise the dead. At this point, Terzo might not even be able to open his eyes, much less walk.

"That is so typical," Dew said, interrupting his thoughts and aggressively throwing his elbows. 

"Dew," Cumulus said, warningly. 

"No, I'm right. He's an asshole," Dew said. "Clergy are all the same."

"Oh, you've worked for other clergy?" Copia asked, completely losing his temper. "Sorry, I missed the part where you were awarded your own palace in limbo when the Third ascended. Tell me all about it."

"I'm sure you heard plenty from your shitty boyfriend," Dew said. 

"Dew!" Aether yelled, and then there was a very loud silence where it seemed like they were screaming at each other via mindspeak. 

"I did not," Dew sputtered. The rumbling beat beneath them was changing to the cha-cha slide; Aether two hopped this time like he wanted to punch through the floor. 

"He's not wrong," Cirrus said. More pointed, gesticulating silence.

"Stop doing that," Copia shouted, cha-cha-ing real smooth through the remains of his dignity. 

"You think anything we do to be kind to you is pity?" Cirrus asked, turning on him with a vicious charlie brown. "Do you think we'd debase ourselves like that?" 

"You tell me," Copia said, frustrated, right now y'all. "I don't want to be on the receiving end of whatever that was, like this is your sacrifice for having such a shit assignment. This is my life, you know, my calling. My profession. I don't need good intentions, I just need you to do your jobs before you fuck off back to the orgy." 

"We volunteered!" Dew yelled, turning it out with a vengeance. 

Everyone clapped their hands. 

"What?" Copia asked, after they'd taken it back four hops this time. 

"We all volunteered," Aether repeated. He slid to the left. "You're next in line, doing a resurrection ritual--that's a huge deal. There's so much energy for us to feed on, and your presence--"

"We didn't want to work for the third," Cirrus said. "We wanted someone stronger. So here we are. If you rise, we rise." 

"It wasn't pity," Cumulus said.

She tried to catch his eye, reversing all the while. 

"We want to ride the comet just as bad as you. We're all in."

"We have ambitions too," Aether said. 

Copia looked from ghoul to ghoul, their cold silver faces and shining eyes. Their individual, complementary movements and passionate screaming--at him, which wasn't ideal, but, then again.

At the end of a ritual he'd once come across Omega and Terzo, forehead to forehead, shaking each other, half falling, screaming into each other's mouths, frenetic and sweaty. 

"That was so awesome," Omega kept repeating, and Terzo kept shouting "Fucking amazing," and the energy around them crackled, white hot. This was the promise that came with the robes. The kind of power that flowed and brightened, but was enhanced by those around you. The people beside you would multiply that feeling like a laser in a hall of mirrors. 

Halves your sorrow and doubles your joy, or so the saying went. 

"And kissing is something you seem to like," Cirrus explained. "Humans kiss each other all the time. We don't, usually, but it's nice."

"I'm not sorry," Dew said, taking it back two steps. "You should be sorry. Do you know how weird human mouths are?" 

Copia watched him viciously shimmy. It wasn't the weirdest proposal he'd ever received.

"I apologize for underestimating you," he said. "I'm sorry for misunderstanding your intentions. I'm honored that you think so highly of me." 

They took another few hops.

"I intend to be the greatest papa this abbey has ever seen," he said, seriously. It hung in the air, charged by the magic surrounding them. "I promise that you chose the right person."

"Apology accepted," Cumulus said, after a moment. The other ghouls nodded. The grotto began to thrum with the opening beats of a salsa. 

Dew remained a physical frown, hips bobbing sullenly. 

"As a sign of my contrition, Dew may drive the car," Copia said. 

"That's more like it!"

"Once," Copia clarified. "This is a one-time event." 

"Whatever, baby rat, let's get cracking," Dew said

Copia sighed, but had to bite back a smile.

"Let's turn this mother out," he agreed, pulling Aether in and dipping him. 

"Ow," Terzo said, wincing as he pulled the knife from his chest. "That stings."

"Welcome back, fuckface," Dew said. Cumulus stepped on his foot. 

"Charming," Terzo said, flipping his hair back from his face in a practiced motion. "I take it this is your entourage?" 

"My ghouls, yes," Copia said. "Welcome back, Terzo."

He exchanged kisses with Terzo, who smelled like absolutely nothing at all and was cool to the touch. He accepted a towel and cast a curious glance around the grotto as he dabbed at his skin. 

"It's good to see you," Terzo said, focusing on Copia. Both his eyes were now white. He smiled and it was as lovely as it ever was.

"You look good, all things considered," Copia said. 

"I feel pretty good," Terzo said, running his hands over his shoulders and tentatively touching his neck. He closed his eyes briefly, and then clapped his hands and turned the grin back on.

"Well!" he said. "I hear you've got an orgy on as well. Don't tell me you went to all that trouble just for me?"

"Spare no expense for the abbey's favorite retired papa," Copia said, lightly. "But I'm afraid Lucifer has other plans for you, Father."

"I see," Terzo said, after a beat. "I am Father again, aren't I." 

"Are you going to use that towel?" Dew asked.

"Will you be assisting me on this task?" Terzo asked, ignoring Dew. 

"I can't," Copia said. "I have work here."

"You know I enjoy your company," Terzo said, just the hint of a wheedle creeping into his voice when he added, "Gianni--"

"Cardinal," Aether supplied. 

"This has been fun, but I am still a Prince of Hell," Terzo reminded him pleasantly, leaning around Copia. "I will drag you back with me."

"Try it," Dew said. 

"Dew, I will take the car keys back," Copia said. Dew slunk behind Cumulus. 

"Very, very charming," Terzo said, drily. "Well. I suppose I will be getting along with it."

He glanced at Copia.

"Can you at least spare a dinner for me before I go back?"

"That would be acceptable," Copia said, after a moment. 

"Acceptable? Don't let me inconvenience you, Satan below," Terzo said, dramatically throwing up his hands. "I'm just back from the dead, wanting to spend time with my favorite cardinal--"

"I said yes," Copia said, torn between amusement and irritation. It was like dealing with a Dew who had been spoiled to death from birth. "Now get your clothes on, kitty." 

Terzo whirled on him and pointed a finger, gasping. For a moment he looked furious, but it quickly was overtaken by an uncontrollable giggle, which evolved into a fit of laughter that bent him double. Copia felt himself smile as well. Finally Terzo pulled himself together, knotting his towel and wiping at his eyes. He looked at Copia. 

"Oh my, lectured by the little rat himself," Terzo said, fondly. "I'm very happy for you." 

"Thank you," Copia said. "I'm pretty happy myself." 

**Author's Note:**

> emerituschurch on tumblr
> 
> Lucifer's favorite musical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQv2sq6jEhU&ab_channel=BroadwayClassics
> 
> Soundtrack for raising the dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWWoO0KliUk&ab_channel=MarcelAucoin


End file.
